Techie Tuesdays: WordPress 4.0 "Benny"

Last week, WordPress launched its latest update - WordPress 4.0 - aptly titled "Benny" after American jazz clarinetist and bandleader Benny Goodman. Amongst developers, this update is significantly underwhelming. The expectation was set from WordPress 2.0 to 3.0, that most people expect big things from 4.0. What exists is nothing near a major release, but there are some significant improvements that as bloggers you will notice and probably greatly appreciate.

MEDIA:

When you upload media files and view media files, you can now have a much smoother grid view as well as the more traditional option. This makes previewing much quicker, as well as internal searching.

EMBEDDED CONTENT PREVIEWS:

When you add a youtube URL or Tweet to you post, you will be able to see it in the visual editor. In the past, you had to “preview” the post to see how the video would display. Embedded Content Previews include CollegeHumor, Youtube Playlists and TED, but you can view the full list here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Embeds

WRITING & EDITING IMPROVEMENTS:

In the past, writing and editing content would not fit to your window as you wrote. With WordPress 4.0, they’ve greatly improved this functionality so that it is easier to navigate a post dashboard. They’ve also made it so that the visual editor toolbar stays fixed to that window.

PLUGINS:

WordPress 4.0 comes with improved metrics and visibility of searching for the correct plugin. With over 30,000 free plugins, it can be exhausting finding the one you need. Therefore, this improvement to viewing and selecting plugins is a huge help!

When WordPress updates, often plugins and themes go through updates. You should make sure you complete these updates as well. After you’ve updated your site, test your site in different browsers and devices to make sure everything works as it should.

Do you have a tech or design question you would like answered? “Techie Tuesdays” is a weekly series written by Lindsay Humes of White Oak Creative. In order to make this series beneficial to the Midwest Blogger network, you can email your specific questions to Lindsay at lindsay@whiteoakcreative.com, and she will answer them in her weekly series.